Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(40)

“I do have a phone,” she told him. “It’s just not in Cornwall.”

“That’s hardly convenient to our purpose, Daidre.”

“So you’re working on the story about Santo Kerne?”

“I can’t exactly avoid it and still call myself a newsman, can I.” He tilted his head towards his office, saying to the receptionist, “Bring up Steve on his mobile if you can, Janna. Tell him Dr. Trahair’s come into town and if he manages to get back quick enough, she might consent to an interview.”

“I’ve nothing to tell him,” Daidre told Max Priestley.

“‘Nothing’ is our business,” he replied affably. He held out his hand, a gesture telling Daidre to go into his office.

She cooperated. Beneath his desk, his golden retriever snoozed. Daidre squatted by the dog and caressed her silky head. “Looking well,” she said. “The medication’s working?”

He grunted in the affirmative and said, “But you aren’t making a house call, are you.”

Daidre made a cursory exam of the dog’s belly, more a matter of form than from any real need. All signs of the skin infection were gone. She rose and said, “Don’t let it go on so long next time. Lily could lose her fur in gobs. You don’t want that.”

“Won’t be a next time. I’m actually a fast learner, despite what my history suggests. Why’re you here?”

“You know how Santo Kerne died, don’t you?”

“Daidre, you know that I know. So I suppose the real question is why’re you asking. Or stating. Or whatever you’re doing. What do you want? How can I help you this morning?”

She could hear the irritation in his voice. She knew what it meant. She was merely an occasional holiday maker in Casvelyn. She had entrée to some places and not to others. She shifted gears. “I saw Aldara last night. She was waiting for someone.”

“Was she indeed?”

“I thought it might have been you.”

“That’s not very likely.” He looked round the office as if for employment. “And is that why you’ve come? Checking up on Aldara? Checking up on me? Neither seems like you, but I’m not much good at reading women, as you know.”

“No. That’s not it.”

“Then…? Is there more? Because, as we want to get the paper out earlier today…”

“I’ve actually come to ask a favour.”

He looked immediately suspicious. “What would that be?”

“Your computer. The Internet actually. I’ve no other access, and I’d rather not use the library. I need to look up…” She hesitated. How much to say?

“What?”

She cast about and came up with it, and what she said was the truth despite its being incomplete. “The body…Santo…Max, Santo was found by a man doing the coastal walk.”

“We know that actually.”

“All right. Yes. I suppose you do. But he’s also a detective from New Scotland Yard. Do you know that as well?”

“Is he indeed?” Max sounded interested.

“So he says. I want to find out if that’s true.”

“Why?”

“Why? Well, goodness, think of it. What better claim to make about yourself if you don’t want people looking at you too closely?”

“Thinking of going into police work yourself? Thinking of coming to work for me? Because otherwise, Daidre, I don’t see what this has to do with you.”

“I found the man inside my cottage. I’d like to know if he is who he says he is.” She explained how she’d come to be acquainted with Thomas Lynley. She made no mention, however, of how the man seemed: like someone carrying across his shoulders a yoke studded with protruding nails.

Her explanation apparently seemed reasonable to the newsman. He tilted his head towards his computer terminal. “Have at it, then. Print up what you find, because we may well use it. I’ve work to do. Lily’ll keep you company.” He started to leave the room but paused at the door, one hand on the jamb. “You haven’t seen me,” he said.

She’d moved to the terminal. She looked up, frowning. “What?”

“You haven’t seen me, should anyone ask. Are we clear on that?”

“You do know what that sounds like, don’t you?”

“Frankly, I don’t care what it sounds like.”

He left her, then, and she mulled over what he’d said. Only animals, she concluded, were safe for one’s devotion.

She logged onto the Internet and then a search engine. She typed in Thomas Lynley’s name.

DAIDRE FOUND HIM WAITING at the bottom of Belle Vue Lane. He looked completely different from the bearded stranger she’d driven into town, but she had no trouble recognising him since she’d spent over an hour gazing on a dozen or more news photos of him, generated by the investigation of a serial killing in London and by the tragedy that had supervened in his life. She now knew why she had seen him as an injured man carrying a tremendous burden. She merely didn’t know what to do with her knowledge. Nor with the rest of it: who he actually was, what comprised his background, the title, the money, the trappings of a world so far different from her own that they might have come from different planets and not merely from different circumstances in different parts of the very same county.